I read that article. I hoped the BBC journalist had been the one who inserted all that woo woo into a science scientific paper report. But alas, it appears that two people with the Field Museum who have regaled and dazzled museum patrons as their day job were the source of that woo woo.

As I make it out the perhaps real dating is 4.6 to 4.9 billion years old:

"Based on how many cosmic rays had interacted with the grains, most had to be 4.6-4.9 billion years old. For comparison, the Sun is 4.6 billion years old and the Earth is 4.5 billion."

That's also happens to the approximate age of the Earth.

Ignore that "however" which follows the above toward the end of the article, it's statistical noise within the second standard deviation:

"However, the oldest yielded a date of around 7.5 billion years old."

Ignore that. That is where the woo woo was inserted. Thus the headline, and the blaring whoopty do.

That article didn't get even the slightest bit real until near the end in the last two paragraphs where the details were hid.

In the very last paragraph we meet Dr. Heck:

"Dr Heck told BBC News: "Only 10% of the grains are older than 5.5 billion years, 60% of the grains are "young" (at) 4.6 to 4.9 billion years old, and the rest are in between the oldest and youngest ones."

There Dr Heck is allowing a glimpse of the real to be seen. In a normal distribution 10% will deviate by about that amount, that's in keeping for the first standard deviation for that kind of dating. That lone 7.5 billion year date is in the second standard deviation, also well within keeping.

The date should read: 4.6 to 4.9 billion years, plus or minus 0.7 billion years.

But heck if he didn't kneed the results a bit after he said, and he did, that headline would have read:

"Exciting science bombshell! Asteroid space rock radioactive ion dated and it's the same age as the Earth!!!

Sam Lefthand » Tue Jan 14, 2020 12:27 am wrote:
I read that article. I hoped the BBC journalist had been the one who inserted all that woo woo into a science scientific paper report. But alas, it appears that two people with the Field Museum who have regaled and dazzled museum patrons as their day job were the source of that woo woo.

As I make it out the perhaps real dating is 4.6 to 4.9 billion years old:

"Based on how many cosmic rays had interacted with the grains, most had to be 4.6-4.9 billion years old. For comparison, the Sun is 4.6 billion years old and the Earth is 4.5 billion."

That's also happens to the approximate age of the Earth.

Ignore that "however" which follows the above toward the end of the article, it's statistical noise within the second standard deviation:

"However, the oldest yielded a date of around 7.5 billion years old."

Ignore that. That is where the woo woo was inserted. Thus the headline, and the blaring whoopty do.

That article didn't get even the slightest bit real until near the end in the last two paragraphs where the details were hid.

In the very last paragraph we meet Dr. Heck:

"Dr Heck told BBC News: "Only 10% of the grains are older than 5.5 billion years, 60% of the grains are "young" (at) 4.6 to 4.9 billion years old, and the rest are in between the oldest and youngest ones."

There Dr Heck is allowing a glimpse of the real to be seen. In a normal distribution 10% will deviate by about that amount, that's in keeping for the first standard deviation for that kind of dating. That lone 7.5 billion year date is in the second standard deviation, also well within keeping.

The date should read: 4.6 to 4.9 billion years, plus or minus 0.7 billion years.

But heck if he didn't kneed the results a bit after he said, and he did, that headline would have read:

"Exciting science bombshell! Asteroid space rock radioactive ion dated and it's the same age as the Earth!!!

I think "dust to dust" applies to suns same as it does for living things.

When a sun nova's, much of it's mass is expelled into space, and that part reverts back to being scattered dust, from which has to condense and collect until enough mass comes together to begin the fusion process anew.

Jupiter has almost enough mass gathered together to become a baby star. It's generating some energy now.

Greenpeace is not happy that its advertisements were found on YouTube videos featuring climate change denialism and misinformation.

The environmental nonprofit on Thursday called on YouTube to change how it handles content that denies or downplays global warming, pushing the social media giant to pull ads and change its recommendation algorithm.

Like Sam said, exhausted stars usually collapse inward from gravitation and nova, then there is no star. There is dust and gas, which can accrete into various things. (Jupiter might have solid hydrogen.)

Jupiter is fairly close to the mass needed for fusion to begin, though that won't happen any time soon, if ever. It does give out more energy than it gets from the sun, though most is the result of moving mass in magnetic fields. Most of this is RF of various wavelengths.

Several SF stories have postulated Jupiter igniting and turning the sun into a binary star. Talk about lighting up the night, not to mention changing the climate on Mars.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Friday dismissed a lawsuit by 21 young people who claimed the U.S. government’s climate policies and reliance on fossil fuels harms them, jeopardizes their future and violates their constitutional rights, potentially dealing a fatal blow to a long-running case that activists saw as an important front in the war against environmental degradation.

The Oregon-based youth advocacy group Our Children’s Trust filed the lawsuit in 2015 in Eugene on behalf of the youngsters. It sought an injunction ordering the government to implement a plan to phase out fossil fuel emissions and draw down atmospheric carbon dioxide emission. The case had bounced around the federal courts for five years and multiple trial dates were canceled.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Four teachers from a Los Angeles-area school sued Delta Air Lines on Friday, saying they were exposed to jet fuel when a plane with engine trouble dumped its fuel over a densely populated area, including several schools, while making an emergency return to the airport.

At a news conference, the teachers described the fuel as drizzling down like raindrops with “overwhelming” fumes. They said their panicked students screamed and cried.

GRAY, ME — The National Weather Service issued a "winter weather advisory" warning due to snow heading into New England Saturday and running through Sunday. The alert, posted at 3:16 a.m., covers the entire state of New Hampshire. The advisory will be active between 4 p.m. Saturday and 8 a.m. Sunday.

"Low pressure moving out of the Great Lakes region will spread snow into the area," the alert stated. "The snow could be heavy at times, mainly this evening. The (storm) will taper off to snow showers from west to east late tonight through Sunday morning."

Canada’s federal government will help Newfoundland on the Atlantic coast dig itself out in the wake of a massive winter blizzard that buried cars and left thousands without power.

The storm on Friday and Saturday dumped as much as 76.2cm (30 inches) of snow on St John’s, the capital of Newfoundland, and packed wind gusts as high as 130km/h (81mph). The snowfall was an all-time record for the day for St John’s international airport.

HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — A small earthquake was reported in southern Kansas on Sunday.

The U.S. Geological Survey said a magnitude 4.5 earthquake struck about 2 miles (3 kilometers) southwest of Hutchinson shortly after 1 p.m. The service had initially reported that it was a magnitude 4.4 earthquake, but later upgraded it. No damage was immediately reported.

Of all the weather elements, perhaps none causes forecasters more fits than predicting snow accumulation totals. Trying to forecast snow presents challenges for local TV meteorologists, government forecasters and even the experts here at AccuWeather.

“It has to do with the liquid to snow ratio,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski explained. Sosnowski has been forecasting for AccuWeather since 1983 and he has seen and predicted all manner of winter weather in his day.

Of all the weather elements, perhaps none causes forecasters more fits than predicting snow accumulation totals. Trying to forecast snow presents challenges for local TV meteorologists, government forecasters and even the experts here at AccuWeather.

“It has to do with the liquid to snow ratio,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski explained. Sosnowski has been forecasting for AccuWeather since 1983 and he has seen and predicted all manner of winter weather in his day.

I saw that. I'm not surprised by the increasing frequency of tidal floods in Venice. That's climate change. I was surprised when the water all sucked out, but maybe that's just because peak high tides can have peak low tides.

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Trump administration on Wednesday approved a right-of-way allowing the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline to be built across U.S. land, pushing the controversial $8 billion project closer to construction though court challenges still loom.

The approval signed by Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and obtained by The Associated Press covers 46 miles (74 kilometers) of the pipeline’s route across land in Montana that’s controlled by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said Casey Hammond, assistant secretary of the Interior Department.

A small earthquake was detected near Ransomville, Niagara County, late Wednesday morning, according to information from the United States Geological Survey.

The 1.9-magnitude earthquake was reported about 4.8 miles east-southeast of Ransomville, a hamlet about 15 miles northeast of Niagara Falls. The initial reading was reported at 11:50 a.m., according to the USGS.

A magnitude-3.6 earthquake struck two miles north-northeast of Granada Hills at 11:41 p.m. Tuesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The earthquake was felt as far east as Hesperia and south as Oceanside.

SpaceX's license to launch hundreds of internet satellites may have violated the law, experts say. Astronomers could sue the FCC.

A federal agency may have violated the law when it licensed SpaceX to launch thousands of satellites, according to a forthcoming paper. That raises the possibility that disgruntled astronomers could sue.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved SpaceX's request to launch thousands of satellites in March 2018 — part of the rocket company's plan to blanket the Earth in high-speed satellite internet.

The Trump administration has for several years been working to weaken federal vehicle fuel-efficiency standards. To justify these changes, regulatory agencies argued that more stringent standards would both cost consumers more and reduce road safety. A draft version of the new final rule, however, seems to directly contradict those lines of reasoning.

The draft of the Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles rule has not been released publicly, but Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.) has seen it. In a letter (PDF) to the White House, Carper says not only is the rule "replete with numerous questionable legal, procedural, and technical assertions," as well as "apparent typographical and other errors," but it also completely fails to provide the safety or economic benefits initially claimed.

A pair of tragedies unfolded in New Jersey on Wednesday night when five teenagers fell through thin ice covering ponds in two towns across the state. The separate accidents left two teens dead and numerous others injured, including the emergency responders who worked to save them.

In Carteret, located about 25 miles southwest of New York City, a 15-year-old boy identified as David Tillburg was pronounced dead at Newark's University Hospital after being removed from the pond. A second teenager was successfully rescued and saved by the Carteret Fire Department.